JM Podcasting Services

Giving the Unheard a Voice

S17E7: Storytelling ~ Journey and Return

Journey & Return: A Storytelling Theme for Disability Advocacy

Storytelling, when done right, moves beyond mere words and facts, forging deep emotional connections and spurring meaningful action. Disability advocacy services have a number of narrative arc choices. Last episode we covered “The Hero’s Journey”. This episode we’ll delve into “Journey & Return”.

The Journey & Return storytelling arc highlights challenges, growth and eventual triumphs of individuals or communities. This episode explores how your service can adopt this structure to spotlight the journeys of those you serve and bring your work to life.

Understanding Journey & Return

The Journey & Return storytelling framework follows a protagonist as they leave their familiar world, embark on a challenging journey and return transformed. This structure resonates with audiences because it reflects universal human experiences of growth, struggle and renewal.

The stages of the Journey & Return narrative include:

  1. The Departure: The protagonist leaves their familiar environment, often facing uncertainty or fear.
  2. The Journey: They encounter challenges, obstacles and growth opportunities.
  3. The Climax: The hero comes to a realisation, undergoes some form of change, often psychological or has their vision of the world expanded.
  4. The Return: The hero comes back to their community, looking to be the same person but is personally different as exposed by their behaviour.

Why Journey & Return Resonates in Disability Advocacy

  1. It Humanizes Complex Issues Abstract concepts like discrimination, accessibility and systemic inequities can feel distant or overwhelming. By centering stories around an individual’s journey, the Journey & Return arc places the listeners within the emotional experience of the protagonist. This relates back to episodes 2, The Human Element and 3 Emotional Connection
  2. It Evokes Empathy and Action Guiding audiences through the highs and lows of a protagonist’s emotional journey builds a connection with both the story and your service. Listeners are more likely to take action when they feel personally invested in the protagonist’s transformation. The nature of this story arc is more condensed than The Hero’s Journey or can be. It is possible to drop one of the journeys out or back and still achieve the desired outcomes of emotional connection and evidence of change for the protagonist. It just requires a little more skill to tell the story that way but it is doable.
  3. It Highlights Growth and Transformation Disability advocacy revolves around assisting individuals to create change—whether it’s breaking down barriers or growing individuals. The Journey & Return structure naturally emphasizes this growth and reinforces the organization’s mission and impact as a guide for the protagonist. 

Crafting Journey & Return Narratives for Your disability advocacy service

Here’s how disability advocacy services can use the Journey & Return structure to shape compelling narratives:

Identify Your Hero

Every journey needs a protagonist. Authenticity is key—audiences need to see real, relatable individuals at the center of the story.

Set the Stage

Begin your narrative by painting a picture of the protagonist’s starting point. What struggles define their ordinary world? This stage lays the groundwork for the story’s emotional impact.

Depict the Journey

Highlight the protagonist’s departure from their comfort zone and their encounters with challenges. This is where your editorial attention should be placed. Think “Lord of the Rings.” Hobbits leave The Shire and return at the end of the story. Plenty happens in between. How much do you need to tell your story? Does it relate to your vision? An epic over ten episodes of a season could be justified editorially, if it was a good fit for what you do, how the client/protagonist changed and the length of the story supported your goal. For this sort of a season, I’d suggest the change undergone by your protagonist needs to be fairly substantial. It is something to contemplate in the “drawing up the content plan for the season” part of the process.  The journey section is where you build tension, seed questions about possible outcomes and see the protagonist start to face themselves.

Celebrate the Climax

The pivotal moment in the story should showcase the hero’s triumph. Usually over a part of themselves, be that a fear, a task or unification of two individuals as a couple, as examples. Show, don’t tell your service’s part in this process. Remember you are the Gandalf, the Merlin or the Obi Won in this whole story and the protagonist you support must walk their path themselves.

Show the Return

The return highlights how the journey impacts their community. How does their transformation inspire others or contribute to a larger cause? This stage reinforces the ripple effects of your service’s work and inspires continued support and action. Think of Frodo and how his journey has both changed him physically and emotionally, to continue the analogy.

Conclusion

The Journey & Return framework is more than a storytelling theme—it’s a tool for showing transformation. For disability advocacy services, this arc humanises complex issues, inspires action and showcases the real, lasting change your service brings to individuals and communities.

By judiciously using this approach, disability advocacy services can craft the correct narrative for the correct circumstances that highlight their work and inspire potential clients and staff to reach out to them. Every journey and return has the potential to ignite change in others. This is a powerful tool. 

In the next, “Confronting the Monster!”

Links

The Human Element

Emotional Connection